Taco Pizza

 

How was your weekend? I spent the weekend in Dallas celebrating the wedding of one of my oldest friends. It was such a wonderful weekend and I'll have a recap soon, but today I want to talk about pizza. As in PIZZA!

We eat a lot of pizza around here. We have a great spot down the block from us who we order from more often than I'd like to admit. I also make my own pizza a lot, and typically have a store-bought dough in my fridge at any given time for a quick and absolutely delicious Friday night dinner. I've been making a lot of cauliflower pizza recently which feels oh-so-decadent while on Dukan. So many options, but lately I've been wanting to change it up a bit. Enter the taco pizza. 

Secret Recipe Club came at a great time because I was on the hunt to change up our repetoire, and low and behold, I stumbled on Heather's recipe for taco pizza. Heather blogs about all kinds of amazing recipes that her kids love and say they are 'yummy to my tummy' --->so adorable! Featured on her blog, It's Yummy to my Tummy, Heather made a pizza crust from scratch for this and though I've been wanting to try that (I even bought active dry yeast, but am too scared to use it), I decided to make the taco pizza on a cauliflower crust in the interest of keeping it Dukan-friendly.

The result was nothing short of AWESOME. Even Shaun really enjoyed it and I know he kindly goes along with my cauliflower pizza though he would never choose that over the real deal if I wasn't pushing it on him. I think we both agreed that this guiltlessly elevated our weekday pizza night and this will now be a staple in our repetoire!

Taco Pizza

*Adapted from It's Yummy to My Tummy

1 pizza crust, of your choice

1 C tomato sauce

1 pkg taco seasoning

3/4 C water

1 lb. lean ground beef or turkey

1 C cheddar or Mexican blend cheese, shredded

Shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes & plain Greek yogurt for topping

Have your pizza crust cooked and prepared on a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a skillet, brown the beef or turkey and then mix in the taco seasoning and water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until much of the liquid has burned off.

Meanwhile, pour sauce all over your prepared crust. Top with 2/3 taco meat, spreading it all over the top of the sauce. Sprinkle cheese on top. Place in oven until the cheese is melted, about 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and top with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and Greek yogurt, if desired. Using a pizza cutter, cut into squares or slices and serve immediately!

Thanks to Heather for this super delicious and very filling dinner! We also had leftovers, which almost never happens with cauliflower pizza since it's so thin. By tacoifying the pizza, we made it stretch a lot farther!

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Friday!

 

Happy Friday! Today I'm heading out of town for the weekend..alone! Shaun and Penelope are staying behind while I jet off to Dallas for my friend Tanuja's wedding. I'm so so excited to spend a weekend with some of my college girlfriends and watch one of my longest friends get married! I'm signing off quickly today as I have a plane to catch, but I hope you all have the most beautiful weekend and enjoy some Friday links below! If you want to follow along with all the wedding fun (including photos of me in a sari) be sure to follow me on instagram!

Have a great one! 

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Back on Dukan

Yep it's true. I'm at it again.

{mother's day 2014 vs. mother's day 2015}

Last year I started the Dukan Diet right after Mother's Day and this year, I coincidentally found myself feeling ready to start again at the exact same time. So this week, I've been hitting the attack phase hard and I'm happy to report that so far it's been going really well.

When I first started this diet last year, I didn't know what to expect. It seemed really hard and scary and like I'd never get to eat 'real food' again. But over the course of the summer I lost and kept off 10 pounds. It may not seem like a lot but it was. I felt great and thought I looked great too. I was able to get into clothing sizes that I could barely wear even before I was pregnant with Penelope. I could wear anything. I wore a semi-backless romper, a tube top, short shorts in sizes that I hadn't seen in years. And well, I'm ready to go back to there!

My feeling with Dukan is that the first three days are always the hardest. There are no veggies allowed and so it's a lot of protein and dairy. This makes it a little tougher, however, when there are no salad options for lunch time. I've found that prepping is key. Having a fully stocked fridge and lunch bag each day makes it way easier. And my favorite thing about this diet? I can eat as much as I want. Sure it's approved-foods only, but there are no restrictions on quantity. And so if I feel like I need a snack every hour in the afternoon, then I eat a snack every hour.

Today is day 4 and I've lost 4 pounds. Not too shabby, right? Today I can also begin incorporating vegetables and I see a cauliflower pizza in my future for dinner tonight, which feels downright decadent. Tomorrow I'll be heading to Dallas for my friend's wedding, and while I'm super duper excited, I am a little worried about how I'll do with sticking on plan for the weekend. I have lots of plane snacks planned and from there, I'm just going to plan to do my best and not stress about it.

So here's a peek at what I've been eating this week:

Breakfast: 0% vanilla Greek yogurt, iced coffee (with cream! never giving that up)

Snack: string cheese & babybel light cheese

Lunch: 2 chicken sausages w/reduced sugar ketchup + yogurt, if needed

Snack: reduced fat cheddar cheese cubes + turkey pepperoni; 2% cottage cheese w/cinnamon & sweetener

Dinner: Dijon mustard chicken kebabs (grilled)

Snack: oat bran w/skim milk + sugar-free syrup

I've mixed up the lunches and dinners, but the snacks pretty much stay the same. This was not much of a change for me since I usually eat this things as snacks anyway! There is a lot of dairy here, but again, it's just for three days. Now that I can have veggies, I'm dreaming of carrot sticks and snap peas!

Another thing that has really gotten me through is diet soda, hot tea and iced tea. Flavored drinks feel like such a treat and have really been a crutch to get through not eating for the sake of eating. If I want to eat, but know it's not because I'm actually hungry, a flavored beverage has really helped. Sometimes I think it's just the ritual of drinking or eating that I'm craving, and a flavored beverage hits the mark!

So that's what I've been eating lately.

Have you ever done a diet like this before?

What have you been eating lately?

psst: your Dukan questions answered/traveling on Dukan/Dukan day plan ideas